


Fool Me Once (Eddie Smiles) - A 'cause you bring out the freak in me Remix

by notalone91



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti)
Genre: Coming Out, Creepy Pennywise (IT), Love Confessions, M/M, Pining, Teenage Losers Club (IT), Teenagers, Truth or Dare, Underage Drinking, you know what that is? that's growth.
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-16
Updated: 2020-09-16
Packaged: 2021-03-07 03:20:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,456
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26490079
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/notalone91/pseuds/notalone91
Summary: When a Losers' Family Game Night goes awry for Richie, could it possibly help him overcome his fear?  What if Eddie has his own secret to tell?
Relationships: Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier
Comments: 2
Kudos: 27
Collections: Derry Remixed 2020





	Fool Me Once (Eddie Smiles) - A 'cause you bring out the freak in me Remix

**Author's Note:**

  * For [friendlystranger1312](https://archiveofourown.org/users/friendlystranger1312/gifts).
  * Inspired by ['Cause you bring out the freak in me](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23490121) by [friendlystranger1312](https://archiveofourown.org/users/friendlystranger1312/pseuds/friendlystranger1312). 



> My hope for remixing this was to go young, try to amp up the fear factor, and to see if I could un-smut. SO,

Losers Family Game Night was a time honored tradition. Ever since their group's bonds had been forged, they'd decided that one grounding, bi-weekly check-in, no matter how busy their lives got, was a necessity. By the time they were 17, the games had adapted, as had they. Sorry slid into Strip Poker, Clue gave way to King’s Cup. Their bonds were still forged as tightly as ever, but it was becoming more and more clear which among them were stronger. Shared trauma being what it is, no one was surprised, even the least, to discover that there were potentials for more than just the best of friends among them. 

Their seats around the old cocktail table in Mike’s basement were just about assigned by then. It was expected. It was tradition. 

More than that, it was a tradition that had traditions of its own. So much so that on that particular Saturday, Eddie tucked himself into the corner between Bev and Stan, Richie felt a sting he couldn’t name. Well, he could, but why would he want to? He pouted and tried to follow, but Mike rested his head against Bill’s chest and his now confoundingly long legs across both Stan and Eddie’s laps, effectively pinning them. Richie knew better than to come between Bev and Ben. So, he plopped on the couch behind Bill. Good ol’ Billy boy, he thought. At least he‘s still my guy. 

“Alright, ladies,” Bev said, tapping the ratty old deck of Bicycle playing cards on the table and looking at her friends, “What’re we playing?”

The group of boys let out a mix of groans. “I suck at card games,” Ben whined.

“None of you sissies will play for money, so what difference does it make if you lose,” Bev countered quickly, nudging at Eddie.

“I was thinking more like truth or dare,” Eddie said, his smile just a little slower than normal. 

It was a smile Richie had never seen and he had dedicated most of his life to making that boy smile. It was off. He started a new column in his mental Eddie Smiles chart, piling this one in with I Can’t Lie For Shit, You’re Gonna Regret That, and I’m Really Not Listening. He didn’t usually get the latter two, ever, but he’d seen them in action. The first one, though. The first one came around a lot and Richie knew it well. It was similar to this one, but when Eddie lied, his eyes were guilty. There was something new in this one. Something in the way that they shifted that made Richie’s stomach a little queasy.

That was off the table and, by now, everyone knew it. Why, then, did everyone seem so enthusiastic about it? It was a ‘clown thing.’ When anyone had a problem that they didn’t want to talk about but needed the topic to change that related to the summer of 1989, all that needed to be said was “clown thing” and it was dropped. Truth or dare was a clown thing. Richie wouldn’t talk about it any further, but everyone knew it was a clown thing. By 1993, “clown thing” had lost the sharpness of its meaning as their memories of that summer lost clarity. By then, it was just a code.

Bev bounced a little, putting the cards down on the table as she attempted to maneuver the table away, allowing for more center access. “Good. This’ll be fun,” she giggled. “Who wants to start?”

The boys all pulled back, hoping Bev might set the precedent. Truthfully, most of them seemed to be looking for ideas. Truth, among them, wasn’t hard to come by. Dares, however, had to be pointed and absurd because there wasn’t much they wouldn’t do.

Always the one to take the leap, Bev obliged with a sigh. “Fine, I’ll ask first. Bill, Truth or dare,” she asked, popping a single chip into her mouth and crunching it obnoxiously.

It started innocuously enough. Bill was dared to have his makeup done. He drew the line at eyes only, which Bev considered a victory. He set his sights on Stan, who went for truth, and wound up detailing why, exactly, he wasn’t more outgoing in his pursuits of the new girl in their biology lab in a strange spiraling speech about birds. 

Richie’s pulse quickened each time someone finished their punishment. He could be next. He didn’t want to be next. For the love of God, he didn’t. He rolled onto his back and stared at the ceiling, trying to shove away the incoming thoughts of They know! They know, they know, they know, and they’ll hate you forever! Even if, less than a foot away from him, Mike couldn’t keep his gaze off of the way that Bill’s eyes were so much more prominent with the grey pencil around them and the dark black dragged through his lashes. And Bill was lapping that attention up. But it didn’t matter.

Despite the coke-bottle glasses, Richie couldn’t see past the end of his nose. 

Brilliantly, Stan managed to rope Bill into a second punishment when Bev picked dare. She didn’t hesitate in flicking her dress up over her head and tossing it to Bill. Bill, however, shot Stan a threatening glance before looking bashfully at Mike, though poor Richie caught his eye as well. It was a look that Richie totally misread as “I don’t want to change in front of him,” like the pair of them hadn’t gone down to the quarry to swim and bitch about ‘girls’ earlier that week. Eventually, noticing Bev tapping her foot at him impatiently, he stripped off his shorts and button-down, stuffing them into her hands before managing to tug her dress on over his broad shoulders. Bev belted the shorts tight and tied the button down just lower than her bra and, somehow, managed not to look ridiculous. Like Daisy Duke’s freckle-faced cousin or something.

It wasn’t as though he was blind to Bev’s charms. She just wasn’t it for him. He liked his girls a little more on the… male side. At least anymore. That’s not to say that he wasn’t interested in girls. That just didn’t linger on his mind. Liking girls didn’t scare him. He understood that. That was normal. Liking boys- Liking his best friend- That was a different story entirely.

Graciously moving the game along, she pointed her focus to Eddie, who surprisingly, chose dare. “I dare you to sit on the loser you’d most like to date’s lap for the rest of the game.” 

The pair shared a loaded glance before Eddie hauled himself off of Stan’s shoulder and dislodged Mike’s legs. He made a show of almost sitting on Bill before Mike gave him a pinch and a smack, swatting him off. When he finally turned to Richie, air raid sirens started going off in his head. Every fiber of his being cried out in conflicted panic. He hauled himself up over the back of the couch and split up the steps, amidst the cries of his friends. “Come back, Richie!”

A voice that was Mike but all the while not yelled out, “Come back and play!”

“It’s just truth or dare!” came a kaleidoscopic version of Stan’s low, pleasant voice. It almost made him turn around. 

Almost.

The voices that were so much his friends were so much not them at all that it chilled him to his core. He couldn’t bring himself to care much if it was really them, though he deeply suspected it wasn’t. They wouldn’t have done that. They wouldn’t have violated the rule. They just wouldn’t.

As he made it away, the voices morphed and swam and became noises he couldn’t recognize. He made it as far as the backfield before a single red balloon floated by in front of him. 

He blinked at it, forcing himself to believe that it was a coincidence. Something a little kid had let go out the window of his dad’s old Chevy on the road and the wind carried it back here. It had to be. 

It.

The word stuck in his throat, a strangled cry of the scared child he had been a few summers back when It was all they could talk about.

It’s a clown thing.

It wasn’t a safe word. A clown thing wasn’t “I’m being stupid, I know, but nevertheless, I really, really don’t want to do it.” It was literally a clown thing. That fucking clown.

It was there on the tip of his tongue, like trying to describe a dream before it fleets off in the daylight. What about the clown?

Wanna play truth or dare?

No, he really didn’t. The secrets Richie kept were not for his friends to know. They were his crosses to bear and he knew it. A bunch of guys would never get it. Never.

I know your secret!

He covered his ears uselessly as he walked. There is no blocking out a voice when it’s coming from inside your head, he knew. At least that meant that he could rest assured in the knowledge that It- the God damned clown- wasn’t following him. He was alone.

Your-

He doubled over, pressing his forehead into his still knobby knees and tried to focus on the feeling of his glasses burying themselves into the bridge of his nose. He needed some sensation to ground him into the moment or he was going to lose it. He knew it was only a matter of time, either way, but he wasn’t about to let himself go now.

Dirty!

Richie dug his fingers into his hair and pulled, hoping that anything could stop the memories that were now flooding back to him, of clowns and balloons and statues and missing kids and blood and bones and-

Little!

Georgie! God, how could he have forgotten about what had happened to Georgie? That little boy was like a brother to him. He’d been by Bill’s side at the funeral, staring down at the boy, the gaping hole where his arm should be only rivaled by the hole his death had torn in his family. Richie’s family. The Losers were a family, after all, and Georgie’s death had changed Bill irreparably. 

Secret!

As the weight of all of these things began to crash on Richie’s shoulders, one more thing crossed his mind. The smile. The smile that had earned itself a new place on the list of Eddie smiles. He had seen it before after all. 

Just not on Eddie.

It’s a clown thing. 

  
He took off running for the main road and didn’t stop until the lights of town started to poke into view; tiny white pills spilled across the night sky like placebos haphazardly discarded from the pill organizer Edidie used to carry in his fanny pack. Richie stopped a moment, winded by the memory. Where had all of these details been hiding? Had everyone else been experiencing this fuzz too or was he losing it? He’d heard stories, his dad’s buddies who’d been to ‘Nam. They’d been lucky. They’d made it home. But they were different; changed. The men who came home but parts of them were left over there. They were different and they’d never get better. Sometimes, he wondered if his friends and he might have the same problem. Sure, they hadn’t been to a war, but something had happened that tore the ground out from under them.

There was one guy, his dad’s college roommate, James. He had died when Richie was little, but he could remember, there was this big old exhaust fan at the end of their basement. James and Went had gone down there to get a couple of boxes and the blades had whirred to life with an excruciating bang followed by the same grating whir it produced daily. Went had hardly noticed it, but when his conversation partner stopped responding, he had to find out why. What could have caused James to stop, completely still, in the middle of the floor. His hands balled themselves into fists, nails digging white crescent moons into his palms. Still, in his mind, he would later tell Went, he was under a different moon, a lifetime and half a world away. Sometimes, he would forget that Derry existed and e right back in the middle of the marsh. 

At the time, the thought had terrified Richie. How do you forget where you are? How do you get so trapped inside your own head that you can’t get out? 

Now, though, he understood. He appeared at Eddie’s bedroom window completely by rote. He couldn’t remember how he’d gotten there. He couldn’t even remember the climb up. Obviously, he had. Perched on Eddie’s window sill, one foot in and the other dangling out in just such a way that Eddie was sure he was going to fall to his death, he stared at the young man in front of him. 

Eddie had been pacing around his room, seemingly arguing with Richie inside his head, trying to choose the one to use outside of his head. His shoulders slumped forward a little as he resigned to his less than punchy opener. “Where were you tonight?”

That hadn’t been what Richie had expected. It didn’t really make any difference where he’d run off to, at least in his mind. Eventually, he choked out a stunned “What?”

“Game night!” Eddie whisper-yelled, trying not to wake his mother. He couldn’t believe that, after all this time, it meant that little to Richie. Somehow, Eddie missed the confusion in his best friend’s eyes. “You never showed. We were all worried!”

“I was-”

Unsure that it mattered, Eddie steamrolled over Richie’s attempted explanation. He wasn’t there. He was sure there was a reason. He knew Richie well enough for that. That didn’t change the fact that he was allowed to be mad. He had worked up all of his courage to- no. No, that had nothing to do with it. What mattered was that he wasn’t there. “What was so important that you’d miss game night?” He was trying not to let on how much it had hurt him that Richie hadn’t showed. He was failing at it, sure, but he was trying, damnit.

Inside his head, it was all Richie could do not to flip out and start to run again. Everything felt like a trick. But this was Eddie. He could be sure of that. What he couldn’t grasp was if he had never made it to game night, where in the hell had he gone? “I-” 

He trailed off again. Eddie stopped short, realizing he hadn’t clipped off Richie’s explanation and it still hadn’t come. He turned to look at him and sighed. The longer he watched, the clearer it became that it was more severe than he expected. He sat cross legged on the floor below Richie and reached out to tug on the knee of his jeans, trying to pull him, at least, off of the sill and into the room completely. “What’s going on, Richie?” 

After opening his mouth to answer once, then twice, he sighed. “Clown thing.” It was a lame excuse, he knew, especially for something this big. Nevertheless, he secretly hoped that Eddie would take that for what it was and let it go. He didn’t know what he would do if, somehow, Eddie remembered the true origin of the phrase when he had shoved it so far down.

“No,” Eddie answered, tugging him harder until Richie had no choice but to join him on the floor, leaving them practically knee to knee. “No ‘clown thing’ this time. That doesn’t even mean anything. Tell me the truth.”

A breath of relief escaped through Richie’s tensely pursed lips. “That’s the thing! It does!” he whimpered. “I did show tonight,” he began, focusing on one large stalactite of plaster in the corner of Eddie’s popcorn ceiling. “I did.” Eddie shook his head and all Richie could do was shrug. “Or I thought I did.” Sensing his best friend’s skepticism, he decided that the best thing he could do was try to explain. “We were in Mike’s basement and you and Bev decided we were going to play truth or dare.”

“Despite your pathological fear of the truth? Bold choice,” Eddie replied, unmoved. He crossed his arms and raised his eyebrows slightly, challenging him. 

Richie scrubbed at his eyes with the heels of his hands. “No, not bold choice,” he groaned. Eddie turned away from his friend and moved around him wordlessly gesturing for Richie to head back out of it. He seemed likely to push him out if he couldn't say it. Richie grabbed Eddie by the shoulder, roughly turning him so they were face to face and dangerously close. "No, you guys didn’t give me the choice! None of you did!"

Wouldn't want anyone to know the truth, wouldja Richie?

Steeling his jaw, Eddie stared him down. He tried not to roll his eyes- he did!- but he was just so annoyed. With a sigh, he replied, "Richie, we played Clue tonight, a fact which you would know if you had deemed it worthwhile to-"

"NO!" The volume of his voice startled them both. They were immediately caught in the stark contrast of Richie’s voice to the silence as they made sure Mrs. K hadn't heard or woken up.. there was a rustle of bedsheets followed by a light snore and Eddie could breathe again. Richie, too, took a deep breath and refocused on what he was talking circles around.. "I'm sorry, okay. Just listen." He led Eddie back to sit on the edge of the bed but couldn't bring himself to sit. "I was there tonight." Eddie squinted, doing his best to give Richie the benefit of the doubt. "I was at Mike’s." 

With an exaggerated sigh, he flopped back on the bed and buried his face in his arms, only to have Richie peel them apart and drag him upright again. Something in his panicked expression convinced him to hear him out. At least if it was a psychotic break, he'd have some answers for when he took Richie to the hospital. 

Richie didn't seem to notice amidst his rambling. "I showed and you guys ignored me and then Bev dared you to something and I freaked out and ran away and there was a red balloon and I remembered…" he shook his head and stopped pacing. It all seemed too real, like a really well edited horror movie. The colors were too bright, the voices too loud.. but he remembered what he could only hope was all of it.. it had only been a few years. If the version of Mike that existed in his head was right, this wasn't supposed to happen for 24 more years. He thought about the blood and the screaming and Georgie’s bloated, drowned body and the gaping hole where his arm should have been. And the baseball bat. "I don’t know what I remembered. I hope it was a dream. If it wasn’t a dream then, Eds, we’ve got bigger problems than me missing game night." He moved back to his best friend and knelt at his feet. "Please, Eddie, tell me you remember it. Tell me you remember," he pleaded.

"Remember what?" He hadn’t meant to snap. He hadn’t. But nevertheless he had and the sharpness of it reverberated through Richie. 

“It!” Richie blurted out, scrambling for his thoughts like papers strewn from a Trapper Keeper knocked from his hands by Belch Huggins in the 7th grade, littering the ground between his and Eddie’s lockers. He couldn’t say more. He didn’t know what or how to. Instead, he repeated, desperately, “It, Eddie. Think.” He reached for his friend who stepped away in search of a distance of his own. Finally, with a sharp pop, it dawned on him. “Red balloons.”

All Eddie could do was scoff openly. “Okay, Nena,” he groaned, pushing Richie toward the window. He knew he wouldn’t get sleep that night, but he’d hoped that, maybe, he might get some rest. Or at least some quiet.

Quiet was not something Richie Tozier could abide. “No,” he contested, gripping the buffalo check sleeves of Eddie’s matching pajamas. “Jesus. Come on, Eddie.”Suddenly, beneath his fingers, he felt rough, itchy patches of phantom plaster from the cast that none of the Losers were allowed to sign. “How did you break your arm?” he asked.

Briefly, the smaller boy seemed baffled and annoyed. He had never broken his arm, he thought. Except he had. A bright red V etched into the word Loser. The boy in glasses who’d saved him who had visited him, terrified, just before he’d changed the graffiti. Richie. An insult to a wish. Loser to Lover. “I don’t remember,” he said quietly. It had been a couple of summers before. The Losers had been somewhere together but he’d gotten separated and fell. He looked at the ceiling, exasperated. “It was the quarry, I think. Landed weird and that’s why I don’t remember. I probably passed out.”

Richie shook his head. “Cold. Think harder,” he urged.

Finally Eddie’s eyes locked on Richie’s and it was like all the air had been sucked out of the room. More like the floor had dropped out from under him. “We were playing in an abandoned house and the floor collapsed. The creepy one on Neibolt.”

“Warmer,” Richie nodded encouragingly. He could remember it all, he thought. So that, for his money, was no good. No good at all. He closed himself off and stared at the hole in the toe of his sneaker. “Why, though? Why were we in that old rat’s nest anyway?”

“Bill made us,” he answered without knowing he had. As the pieces began to fall into place, Eddie took a step back and let the picture form. “Georgie…” The little boy’s face in the dark with a single gunshot to his forehead, administered by his own brother. It wasn’t him. It was-

It.

As the realization washed over him, he sat down on the edge of his bed. He watched as the memories played out in front of him, live in glorious technicolor. “Oh my God. How did…” He struggled to end the thought, but Richie knew well enough. How did we forget? “Why don’t I remember all of it? What the fuck?” he asked, tears pricking at the corners of his eyes as he focused on the tear in the knee of his jeans.

“Eddie, look at me,” Richie said, kneeling before him. Little did he know, he had unlocked another memory.

“You snapped it back in,” Eddie whispered. “They- The doctors said it might have been worse if-” He looked at his best friend and smiled a little, despite himself. “And my mom locked me in here all summer. That was when you started sneaking in,” he realized aloud.

Richie nodded and placed his hands on Eddie’s knees to stabilize himself. “Yeah, it was!” He was proud of the brass ones that 13-year-old Richie Tozier had to say Fuck It, I Need To Make Sure He’s Okay and then actually follow through on it. Where were they now?

Breath rattling in his chest, Eddie asked, “So, if It’s back, what’re we supposed to do?” He shook his head and closed his eyes, hoping to block out Richie’s face for a moment. He couldn’t think clearly when he was that close. “I mean, we have to tell the others. Mike and Bill and- God, Stanley’ll have a nervous breakdown. He’ll never speak to us again,” he rambled, leaning over his headboard to his nightstand and opening the drawer, his fingers searching absently for something long since abandoned. “We won. We were supposed to have won. This was supposed to be over, right?” Finally, his hand clamped down around the cold metal canister of his inhaler and he felt himself begin to still. “Or- Or, it’s supposed to happen every 27 years. It hasn’t been 27 years. It hasn’t even been 27 months. It’s not…” 

Richie reached into the drawer and retrieved Eddie’s hand, leaving the unmedicated mister to be forgotten once more and clamped his fingers down around his friend’s. He pulled them back to rest between them. Somehow, that was enough for Eddie. Knowing it was there, sure, but knowing Richie was, too. 

“I can’t do it again,” Eddie said, after a few rare quiet moments. “If we didn’t win then why do we think we could-”

“We don’t know that it’s back,” Richie corrected. Eddie scoffed, but Richie plowed right past him. “We don’t. Maybe I’m having a nervous breakdown and taking you with me.” He shrugged it off and stood up. He hadn’t wanted to upset Eddie. That was always the last thing on his mind. “Maybe it was just a nightmare-”

“That you had in the middle of the afternoon that had a tactile, auditory, and visual component? Not likely,” he replied, voice dripping with thinly veiled sarcasm. “Tell me about this game of truth or dare.” Before Richie could add the first sound to his reply, Eddie jumped back in, clarifying, “And don’t clown stuff me.” 

And just like that, the Trashmouth’s jaws clicked shut. If he couldn’t get himself out of having to explain his fear of truth or dare, he would rather not speak at all. He was sure that he had explained it once and now, if Eddie was getting his memories back, he'd remember in due time. 

Eddie had had enough. “This is serious, Richie. Talk to me!” He was nearly growling, desperate to keep his voice low but still giving in to the near constant urge to yell at Richie. He softened, seeing the discomfort in his best friend’s face. “Why was this game of truth or dare so stressful to you?”

He shrugged the question off. “Because they always are?” 

  
“Why?” Eddie sighed, knowing they were going to have to go around in a few more circles before getting to the point.

  
Richie flopped back dramatically. His hand landed atop one of Eddie’s trainers and he grabbed it unthinking. “Because of the clown!” 

Eddie leaned onto his side. “I know that, fuckhead. Why is the mere idea of truth or dare so stressful to you that you flat out shut down rather than play with your best friends who would never pressure you into anything that you don’t actually want to do?” The only response he received from him was a few vertical tosses of his shoe from Richie. “What do you think we’re going to uncover that we don’t already know?” Richie snorted and tossed the shoe a little higher.

While most would have questioned everything about Richie’s current state, the strange fixation didn’t even register as a blip to Eddie. One day, he’d come home to his bookshelf color separated, and alphabetized from within the color spectrum. Two weeks later, he realized that every shirt in the same size is slightly different because his clothes were arranged in size order, even though they were all mediums because Richie had decided to unfold them, organize them by size, then roll them. Throwing his shoe around the room was nothing. There was no personal boundary between them. 

That lack of personal boundary, though, is why Eddie was stuck on this particular issue. “Why is truth or dare something that the clown was able to use against you? It was our fears embodied, right?” Richie nodded, so he slipped down onto the floor and stopped the one sided catch. So what if his fingers lingered on his wrist a moment too long? “What are you hiding?” he asked again.

“Eds, I-”

He wasn’t looking to be placated. He wanted the truth. Not the same bullshit he’d heard a million times before. “We tell each other everything,” he said, trying to reason with him.

Richie’s resolve was crumbling. His shoulders slumped forward and he hung his head. “I know-”

Finally, Eddie had an idea. It was a long shot, and maybe painted him a hypocrite, but he wasn’t about to let Richie off the hook. “Look, if I tell you something that I wouldn’t want to get uncovered in a well meaning, totally unpointed truth or dare game, do you promise you won’t freak out?”

“Of course,” Richie answered, brows furrowed in confusion. He thought he was the one being grilled. How could Eddie think that he would ever freak out about anything he had to say? 

With a sigh, Eddie knocked his head back against the side of his mattress. He couldn’t believe he was actually going to use this as leverage. “And do you, then, promise to tell me what the hell you’re keeping so bottled up that your torture from the God damned clown was truth or dare?” His heart hammered expectantly beneath his ribs as he waited for a response.

They sat in silence as he worked through it. The old taunts rang through his head as though the clown was sat in Eddie’s bedroom with them. 

Richie stared at him, attempting to find a way in which to argue. He couldn’t. He opened his mouth to make a smart-assed reply, but instead, his traitorous mouth answered with an earnest. “I can promise that I’ll try. That’s about it.”

Despite the fact that that wasn’t the answer he was looking for, Eddie resigned to it. “I guess that has to be good enough.” He closed his eyes and shook his head. 

He still couldn’t believe that this was how he was going to have to say this. In his mind’s eye, Eddie would have told Richie someplace that, if it didn’t go well, he could just leave. They wouldn’t have been arguing. He wouldn’t be scared. Okay, maybe he would but there was some degree of that to be expected, he supposed. 

“Fucking chickenshit,” he hissed, more to himself than anything else, but Richie still prickled and winced. Eddie was too far inside his own head to notice. He took a deep breath and let it all go. “Fuck it. I’m gay.”

And there it was. Loud, proud, and totally looming in the room like a dark rain cloud while Richie sat in stunned silence. 

Eddie had just said…

But if that was the case, then why was he so afraid? If Eddie could say it, then…

Did the others know? Was he the last one to find out? Did Eddie not trust him enough to tell him? It’s not like he himself had been forthcoming, but still. If Eddie wasn’t scared of it, then why hadn’t he told him? 

Richie didn’t say any of that, though. He had promised he wouldn’t freak out. He wasn’t freaking out. This didn’t change anything. It didn’t. Except it did. Not in a bad way, of course but it did! 

Instead, the only sound he could find was a half-whispered, “Oh.” After another few seconds of internal panic, he looked up at Eddie and smiled. “Oh!” It was an epiphany seventeen years in the making.

While his mouth worked overtime, sometimes, Richie’s brain took a moment or ten to catch up. This meant so many things and nothing at all, but he really needed a second to work through them.

A second, though, he didn’t have.

What Richie hadn’t noticed was the conflicting panic mere inches away from him. Every moment’s silence took years from Eddie’s life, he thought. Every unspoken word was a direct betrayal. “You said you wouldn’t freak out,” he whimpered, feeling utterly broken. 

“I’m not,” Richie assured, reaching a trembling hand for Eddie who, for the first time in Richie’s recollection, turned away. “I’m not freaking out,” he answered, willing the squeak in his voice to stop. “I just- I-”

“Richie, you promised-” Eddie reminded him. His mouth dropped downward at both corners, an expression that Richie wasn’t as familiar with. 

Frowns weren’t an expression Eddie wore frequently with his best friend. Scowls and glares that never traveled all the way to the eyes? Sure. This, though? This was uncharted territory. Pure hurt was something that he’d have done anything to never see again. “I’m not! I swear. I’m not.”

“You are, too!” Eddie snapped. Immediately, he regretted it. He stopped and looked at the wall that his bedroom shared with his mother, frozen. When he was convinced that there was no danger of her waking up, he lowered his voice and turned back to Richie. “You are freaking out.” He took the offered hand as evidence and held it up between them. “Look at your hands.” Immediately, he dropped them with a look of pure disdain. “Jesus-”

Richie shook his head. “No, I am. I’m freaking out,” he nodded, realizing that Eddie wasn’t getting it, “but not because of that.” His mouth hung slack for the merest flutter of his heart. “You’re gay. That’s-” He tried to move closer, but was pushed back by Eddie’s outstretched palms. “That’s-”

Shaking his head as he turned to the window and gestured to it, Eddie huffed. “Okay, maybe it’s time you went home.” He was used to Richie making fun of him, but not like this. This was different. 

He had hoped… but what difference did that make?

“No.”

Richie’s insistence pulled Eddie right out of his head. “No?” he asked, shocked.

Repeating it for clarity, he tried a little louder through stress clenched teeth. “No!” He buried his hands in the frame of Eddie’s window and sat. He knew that with his center of gravity lowered and his feet dug in, Eddie was going to have a harder time getting rid of him.

Eddie lifted his eyebrows, opening up all of his features. His rich brown eyes darted over Richie, taking every piece of him in. His hands swung wide as he bent forward. “This is my house that you barged into,” he said as he continued to shove. “So, yes. Go.”

There was a fleeting moment where Richie seemed as though he might actually do it. It would have been easier to keep avoiding it. That’s for damn sure.

“Go, or I shove you out the window,” Eddie threatened, putting his hands square on Richie’s shoulders and preparing for war. He’d won enough games of chicken in his life to know just where Richie’s center of gravity was.

Unfortunately for Eddie, Richie had considerable height on him. He grasped his wrists and held them straight over his head, a safe distance from himself. Still, Eddie rambled. “Enough, Richie. I told you something personal and you’re freaked and clearly you can’t handle this and you don’t have any intention of telling me what’s really wrong, so it’s fine. Just leave.” He jerked his chin toward the open window and stared out of it. He couldn’t face him. He was humiliated and, worse...

He screwed his eyes shut and released his friend. “No. That’s…” He took a step back shaking his head. Finally, from somewhere deep within himself, he summoned up all his courage, the weight of a phantom baseball bat in his hands, and resolved to end it; to get it all out in the open. “That summer, the clown held the way that I feel about guys,” he turned and stopped the pacing he didn’t know he’d begun and looked Eddie square in the eye, “about you, over my head-”

Eddie’s jaw dropped. His lips twisted into another new smile, this time curious and elated. He was starting to get the picture. 

Richie, on the other hand, looked right through him.

“And then you just flat out say that you’re gay like it didn’t make your heart jump out of your chest and you’re in front of me saying it trying to get me to calm down like that wasn’t really similar to what caused me to run out of the vision or whatever’s game of truth or dare because you got dared to sit on the lap of the person you wanted to date and then you almost sat on my lap and I panicked.” Eddie took Richie’s hand and led him, still rambling, to sit on his bed. Richie, knee deep in his fear, didn’t seem to notice. “I panicked because you guys can’t know that. You can’t know that that’s the one thing that I want more than anything else, Eds.”

Eddie couldn’t even find it in himself to play annoyed. It was so stupidly endearing. He would never have guessed that Richie genuinely didn’t realize that, at least among the Losers, he was safe and in good company. He patiently smiled and prompted him. “What is?” 

Doubling over as he grew more frustrated with himself. “You!” If he had bothered to open his eyes, he would have seen the one thing he wanted smiling broadly, arms folded across his chest, and tapping his foot waiting for him to look up. “And at this point, the only reason that I’m saying this is because I’m half expecting for you to open your mouth and show nine-inch teeth and swallow me down like Georgie and that’s fine, honestly.” He shook his head and stared up at the ceiling. “I couldn’t possibly be more scared than I am right now because you aren’t saying anything and I’m afraid that I took too long. And I know how people in this town are. I know how Connor Bowers is now that he’s running the show since his cousin wound up in the bin.” He leaned back and finally looked up at Eddie, realizing for the first time that he had laid his hand on his knee and was crouched in front of him. “It wouldn’t be fair to ask you to answer, knowing what we both know about Derry. Even if Bill and Mike make googly eyes at each other all the time and-”

That was enough. Eddie couldn’t take it anymore. “Mike and Bill are dating, Richie,” he corrected, hoping that would set off the lightbulb.

The “What?” that followed indicated dire news for the state of the wiring in Richie’s brain. Moreso than Eddie had ever imagined.

“Have been for months,” he affirmed. In reality, he wasn’t 1,000 percent sure it was common knowledge since neither had been particularly verbal about their pairing, but Bill had told Eddie when they were in the 4th grade that he didn’t like girls. He was sure of that. No looming game of truth or dare and no threat of defenestration caused his admission. Just honesty. 

Floored, all Richie could let himself say was a small “Huh.” The more he thought about it, it made sense. Bill and Mike spent most of their time together. He actually wouldn’t have been surprised if Bill was living at Mike’s after the fall-out with his parents last Christmas over his going in Georgie’s room. The worst part, as far as he was concerned, was that he had missed it. Maybe, if he’d realized...

Eddie nodded sagely. “You have been so wrapped up in your own paralyzing fear that you didn’t realize that we would all love you no matter what?” He took a deep breath and rubbed his thumbs a little more strongly on Richie’s legs, drawing his attention and finally catching his eyes, then added, “That I would love you no matter what.”

All of the breath flew from Richie’s chest. There was a softness and honestly in Eddie’s face that Richie had scarcely seen before. He couldn’t believe it. No matter how much he wanted to believe it, he couldn’t make himself. “That you...?”

Before he could finish his sentence, Eddie noted the tears welling in his eyes and sprung into action. Sitting beside him on the bed, he brushed away the first tear with his right thumb, then entangled his free hand with Richie’s. 

“Yeah,” he answered lamely. Still, he didn’t really need to say more. It was time for Richie to pick up the slack. He parted his lips in another new smile (one Richie would go on to favor above most else, one that meant You Are Getting Some, Richie Tozier,) and leaned a little closer to him.

Slack which, apparently, he wasn’t ready for. “Eddie. Wait,” he said, reflexively bringing his hand up to Eddie’s neck. He closed his eyes and shook it off. He needed to make sure one last time that it was all for real. “Are you-”

Eddie was quick to mirror him and brought their faces dangerously close together. “I know you’re scared. And I know that whatever’s going on right now makes this even more high stakes, but just trust me. Okay?” Richie nodded against his forehead and coupled their hands on his own cheek. “If you want this- If you want me, all you have to do is ask.” 

A puff of breath escaped his lips and he moved to seal the moment in a kiss, but was stopped. “Which, you do realize you haven’t yet, correct?” Eddie asked.

“Ask?” Richie asked, head light from the proximity and too euphoric to care. 

With a sigh, Eddie sat back a little and laughed. “Do I have to do all of the heavy lifting, here?” 

Richie laughed, too. Finally, the gravitas of the moment was seeming to clear and he could thoroughly enjoy it. “Heavy lifting? I doubt you could lif-” He leaned in and let his hands drop to the bed and pulled Eddie nearly into his lap.

“Richie!” He swatted him off and rolled his eyes. “Okay, fine, whatever. Richie Tozier, please, for the love of God, get your shit together and realize that I am desperately in love with you to the point of absolute obsession.”

And there was the heft of the moment again. Richie simply listened and smiled as Eddie laid it out on the line. 

“Obsessed to the point where I’m not even particularly bothered by how often you interrupt me or how much you infuriate me. You’re my best friend but I think you’re more.” He leaned in and whispered, “I think you’re it, Richie.”

“It?” He whimpered, feigning offense.

Realizing what he said, Eddie hoped he hadn’t blown his chance. “Okay, forget I said that.” He mumbled, looking down at their still entwined hands.

“Which part?” Richie sniffled dramatically. “That you love me almost as much as I’ve loved you forever or that you think I’m a clown?” He hazarded a glance at Eddie and noted the broad smile creeping over his face with the realization that Richie loved him too. Still, he wasn’t off the hook that easily. “Do me a favor, will you?” He nodded, willing to do just about anything in that moment so that they could get back to the kissing they were so close to. “Say something to me so I know you’re you this time.”

Eddie scoffed. That was nearly impossible. Then, it hit him. “I don’t think you’re a fucking clown, dickhead.” Richie raised an eyebrow curiously out from behind his glasses and waited for the blow. If there wasn’t one, that was certainly a weak attempt at convincing him. 

Never the one to disappoint, he leaned in, looking him square in the eye. “I know it,” he assured. Richie choked out a laugh and Eddie took that as his moment to pounce. He pulled himself on top of Richie and crashed their mouths together in a needy, desperate kiss. As long-awaited as any could be between two seventeen year olds. 

“There you are,” Richie cooed as he pushed the dishevelled strands of hair from Eddie’s forehead and kissed him there once, before going back to business.

Rescheduling Game Night was easy enough. It wasn’t as though any of them had much going on that weekend, anyway. Especially given that most of their group was paired off. 

Without hesitation, Richie had suggested Truth or Dare. It still caused his heart to race threateningly, but he was doing it anyway. There was nothing they could ask that he was afraid of anymore. When Mike aimed his turn at him, with his head perched lightly on Bill’s shoulder, his arms around his middle, he quickly answered “Truth.”

Impressed, he gave a nod and thought it over. Bill reached up and tugged his head into position so that he could whisper in his ear. It only caused Richie’s stomach to flip once. He could handle anything, especially with Eddie beside him where he belonged, even if he’d suddenly become infatuated with Richie’s glasses and wouldn’t return them to their rightful place. Still, he wasn’t expecting the big guns on the first turn. “Are you seeing anyone right now?” Mike asked.

“Right now, I’m not seeing much of anything. Give me those,” he instructed, snaking them out from his boyfriend’s grasp and putting them back in their rightful place. “Thank you,” He added, sticking his tongue out in response to the middle finger he had gotten from Eddie.

“Seriously, Richie?” Bev huffed, taking a sip of her drink and kicking at him under the table.

Instead of the answer she wanted, he simply chirped out a cheery, “Yep.” He knocked back the end of his Berry Hooch and grabbed into the cooler for another. When all of the losers had pointed their disappointment at him, he shrugged and added another, “Yes, I am. Okay, my turn!” He was, truthfully, having a good time. He couldn’t figure out what he was so worried about with this stupid game.

From the back of his happy, warm buzz, he could vaguely make out that there was something that he was supposed to tell everyone about. If it was important, he’d remember It. If not… “Staniel, truth or dare.”

Still reeling from the shock that Richie had answered a personal question, then realizing that he hadn’t known the answer, Stan leaned back against the couch. He narrowed his eyes square on Richie’s, challenging him. “Truth.” 

“You’re boooooooring,” he groaned. He had a really killer dare worked up for him that involved props and everything, but it wasn’t important. He could always go back at him on his next turn. He racked his brain for a decent truth. Finally, he found one. “Fine. If you woke up tomorrow as a bird what would you do?”

Stan scoffed. “Easy, fly into your room and shit on your head for not telling me you have a girlfriend!” He tossed a crushed up paper at his friend and hit him square on the forehead. “Richie, truth or dare!”

That offended him deeply. He had only just learned all of the rules and he was not willing to change them now. He whined out, “You can’t do-”

Quick, Bev was at his rescue. Or so he thought. “Yes, he can! New rule. Just decided! All in favor?” She laughed, looking around at the boys with excited eyes. The rest of the Losers quickly raised their hands. Even, as he noted, Eddie. Bev slammed her bottle of bright yellow alcopop down like a gavel. “Richie, pick your poison!”

Even with the sniping, he couldn’t help but laugh. Still, he had to exaggerate the betrayal. “Fine. Truth,” he moaned.

“Who?” Stan demanded.

Richie was shocked. “Oh, damn! I didn’t realize it was a loaded truth or dare? Am I magic?” He looked down at his fingers, then across to his friend. He climbed over the table and peered directly into his eyes. “Stan, are you in there?” He started checking his pulse points and the temperature of his forehead. “Say something, Stanny Boy! Speak to me!”

“Fuck you,” he nodded, shoving him back playfully.

“He’s in there, all right,” Eddie surmised, pulling his boyfriend back down. When he landed, he was dangerously close to him. Instead of shying away like he’d grown used to, he let Richie drape his arm around him and even burrowed into his side.

“Think I ruffled some feathers?” he asked, laughing into the top of Eddie’s head.

Stan didn’t even notice the moment. “Who are you dating?” he over enunciated.

That was the thing. They hadn’t really discussed telling the others. It had only been a day. Richie had kind of been hoping to keep it to themselves for a little while. All the while, he wanted to climb up to the top of Black Cap Mountain and scream that Eddie Kaspbrak loved him. So, he decided to let his little band of nosy friends figure it out themselves. “Why don’t you ask them?”

  
“I’m asking you!” Stan responded. Ben was watching the back and forth with rapt attention. He had figured out the night prior, when he was pretty sure he saw Richie running toward Eddie’s house. He just couldn’t help but watch the drama unfold. It was like a romance novel come to life and he was all for it.

Eddie reached up and carded his fingers through his hair. “It’s fine. We can tell them.” Even if his words may have been missed by the Losers further from him than maybe Mike, who had coughed a little, deep in his throat, the point was delivered.

And welcomed with overwhelming disbelief.

“Get the fuck out of here!” Stan argued. He couldn’t believe that he was getting played like that.

Bev kicked at him again. “You’re unbelievable,” she chided. Unfortunately, Richie didn’t receive her kick. It landed on the inside of Eddie’s heel. As soon as she realized it, her eyes popped open wide. Eddie’s leg was where Richie’s should have been which meant that their legs were folded over one another. Could he have been telling the truth?

Bill was more over the top in his reaction. “You sucked Eddie into this?” he asked, seemingly missing that neither his boyfriend nor Bev’s weren’t reacting at all.

“Can’t you just tell us?” Ben asked, hoping it might stop the overreacting. He shrugged, gesturing toward Stan with his head. He had hoped that it might allow him to pick up on the deeper meaning behind Stan’s reaction.

Slipping into a weak sports announcer voice, Richie responded, “I did, Ben, and play continues!” Before anyone could get the next word in, he directed his attention to the man with his arm wrapped tightly around his waist. “Eds, truth or dare?”

  
A glint of mischief showed in his eyes. “Dare.”

Richie nodded. Finally, someone was feeling fun. “I dare you to kiss your boyfriend.” Eddie, never one to back down, obliged, smiling. Neither boy noticed the cacophonous outrage that morphed into cheers and wolf whistles from their friends over the peaceful quiet of a kiss that felt so right.


End file.
